Student Services

Year 9 Coordinator

I am very excited to be Thornlie Senior High School’s Year 9 Coordinator for 2018. Some of the items and programs for this year are:

ABCN GOALS program

Our ABCN (Australian Broadcasting and Community Network) GOALS program is in full swing! We have travelled to the city to meet our mentors several times now! The nerves and excitement have settled somewhat and are now replaced with an eagerness to meet and delve further into the aim of the program – which is all about setting goals to be successful.

I-TRACK program

This is a program initiated and sponsored by The Smith Family, a national charity helping young Australians in need to get the most out of their education, so they can create better futures for themselves.

i-Track is an online mentoring program run in Year 9 whereby students are matched with a supportive adult (other than a teacher or parent) who volunteers as a mentor and provides the student with general encouragement, advice and guidance about workplace, study and career opportunities. Students and mentors communicate over an 18 week period. Volunteer mentors are drawn from a network of corporate and community partners. All mentors are screened, inducted and then matched with a student, where possible according to the student’s career aspirations.

Meetings

Last year, we shared some ‘girls only’ meetings during Home Room, over several weeks, where our Chaplain, Denise Head and one of our School Psychologists, Sarah Mowe, shared some excellent information with our girls. The focus during these sessions revolved primarily in how to deal with gossip and strategies to reduce anxiety and stress caused by gossip. The concept of a Catastrophe Scale was introduced and explained to the girls. This helped put things in perspective when the girls were feeling ‘like their world was about to explode’. When comparing their situation to ‘life’ catastrophes, they came to realise, that by implementing strategies, sometimes their situation was not as terrible as they initially thought.